Author Archives: admin

309A: Trying to get home

Not a kids book I don’t think-

A fantasy/SF paperback maybe from the 80s? About a woman  who gets dumped off on a semi primitive planet by her hosts. I’m remembering something like it was a traveling party ship? And she gets dumped in some small seaside town? She makes her way to the big city and attempts to earn money to support herself/get off planet by telling fortunes in the town market but is brought up short and taken up by the powerful magician of the town who sees that she has no magic and is faking the fortune telling. Very bad in a place where magic is real.

He is a sarcastic and very self satisfied type.

His brother challenges him for primacy in the family -a magicians duel – that is short circuited by her non magical interference. The brother loses. The jerk/ magician acts like himself some more.

So….

Our heroine (in some sort of snit with the magician) somehow gets on a ship leaving the planet only to find herself stuck with the magician who leaves on the same ship ( in a very self satisfied and sarcastic way, of course) to talk her back.

308X: A blue lion in the tree (Solved)

I’m trying to find a book from my childhood (1980s). It is basically a picture book about a kid in bed looking out a window and seeing different animals in a tree. I remember a snake and white owl on two of the pages. I don’t remember the rest, maybe a bear and a lion. Some of them were different colors too like blue. I believe it went something like “I look out the window to see a blue lion in the tree”.

Thank you for your help.

308W: Time travel is a wheel within a wheel

I think the title was “Ghosts” or at least had that word in the title. I read it in the late 70s from my junior high school library.

The story was about a brother & sister who managed to travel back in time to know the children who lived in the same house. (I think they turned out to be related.)  Their Uncle was involved, and he explained time travel as some sort of wheel within a wheel (I never grasped the concept).  The selfish immature girl who lived in the house couldn’t see them, but could hear them when they spoke. When she proudly modeled a new dress and asked her mother for an opinion, she only heard the voice of one of the children say “I think she looks like a stuffed sausage!”  When they accidentally broke a vase, I believe it altered their time, and disappeared.

It was made into a movie at some point, because I found it on TV once, but I believe it had a different name.

I wish I knew more, but it is all I can remember. I’d love to read it again and share it with my children.

Thanks so much for trying to help!

308V: Haunted Houses in New England

These were several books by the same author, but not a series.  My 7th grade school librarian introduced me to the author.  This would have been around 1985-86.  The books all dealt with old, haunted houses in New England.  One had a creepy basement with a dirt floor, and bodies buried under it.  Another had a person look out a third story window to see a face looking back, and knew it was a ghost.  These books felt very grown up to me at the time, but were definitely Young Adult.  They were eerie and moody, but not Stephen King scary.  It was a woman author, and the covers usually had an old house in silhouette. I’d love to revisit this author, as I read all of the books in our school library over and over.  Some faint memory says the authors name might have been Barbara something……

308U: Boys who would sail

 

Series or collection of books about boys who would sail on boats from 1700s or 1800s.  The boys were lower level people on boats.  Remember one part told about learning to use stars to navigate by.  Several books think by same author. Targeted junior high or high school readers.  Read them in 1970’s.  Loved them.  Would love to read again.

Thanks.

308T: A boy and a whale (Solved)

Here is the book I am looking for from my childhood. I was born in 1981 for reference.

Book is about a whale and boy. They travel down a river and as they go the whale changes colors from the surrounding areas. I know one page is a jungle with monkeys.  The last page of the book is the whale with the boy on top of him swimming out to sea. All the colors have been washed off of him and the water behind him is colored like a rainbow but the whale is white/gray.

308S: Caught stealing 10 cents

I’m a reference librarian who is answering a patron’s request to find a book about a young boy who is caught stealing ten cents and that is all I know about it.

The books would have been out by the early 80’s, the patron read it in 1983.

Thanks for your help.